diet & weight loss

Do low calorie diet plans work, and which is the best one to try?

Eating too many calories leads to weight gain. It therefore follows that if you want to lose weight, you should reduce the number of calories you consume each day.

Almost all weight loss plans involve restrictions on your daily calorie intake. But some so called low calorie diets require a dramatic reduction in calories consumed.

For example, the Grapefruit diet instructs you to eat less than 800 calories each day. The Herbalife plan allows you to have up to 1000 calories. And the Cambridge plan allows no more than 400 calories in the first two weeks.

So which is best? Well, none of them really. Any diet that recommends consuming less than 1000 calories a day (that's half a woman's recommended amount) is not a sensible way to lose weight. Healthy, balanced diets where your daily calories are reduced by a few hundred, are not only more maintainable but prove to be more successful over the long term.